The vanishing of the East: A dead past

Abstract Extract Before exploring the discourse of some Ottoman intellectuals on their cultural environment, I would like to set out some theoretical remarks on beginnings and endings. How does something end? Or, to reverse the question, how does something begin? If one were to explore two conceptual abstractions one would find that neither the theory of general relativity, nor the social sciences have answers; Einstein reduced those two time-related questions into an idea of singularity. He said that the universe started and now expands. Now we know this itinerary as leading us from big bang to black hole. Of course, it is impossible not to imagine a ‘before’ and an ‘after’ for those singularities; there should be a before of a situation and an after of it. This idea of singularity, and the impossibility of detecting a zero point does not only concern the physical sciences.